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| The Last Supper (Christ 112 Times), Andy Warhol |
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
Warning: This week's scripture is a rerun of last week.
Now when I say "rerun", I don't mean that it is an actual repeat word for word of the previous one. It is a repeat of the same story, only in a different book and with different details and insights. Once again we are studying Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist. Scripture tends to do that a lot. Why does scripture repeat and reference itself? I think that we may be able to discover it by studying the parallel in Art. Of course I do... that is the gimmick of this blog, right? There are several artists who revisit themes and make copies of earlier works but if we are searching for the King of Repetition then we must focus our attention on the American Pop Artist Andy Warhol. You probably know Andy for his works celebrating mindless American consumerism like his Campbell's soup cans or his lifelong fascination with the phenomena of celebrity seen in his Marilyn Monroe prints. Andy Warhol wasn't known for probing the intellectual depths or criticizing this subjects, he just viewed them. Andy was the ultimate voyeur: things were interesting not for their virtue but because they were being viewed. This being the case he treated his images of great pathos, banality, darkness and whimsy all the same. Andy Warhol was also known as a social butterfly: first creating his exploitative Silver Factory and Warhol Superstars then later moving being a staple at Studio 54. So it may surprise you that Andy Warhol had a religious side. It wasn't public but it may have been one of the few constant things in his life. After Andy's sudden death in 1987 the world first glimpsed the scores of religious images that the Pop master had been privately and incessantly producing. These will serve as our point of departure in understanding some of the reasons behind repetition in art and in the Bible.
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| Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper), Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat) |
Sometimes repetition is the product of the fulfillment of its previous manifestations. It is like all of the years of schooling that you go through. For at least twelve plus years you are required to go through the same yearly cycle of learning and tests. With each new year you take different subjects or may take the same subjects but learn greater truths about these subjects, but the two integral parts never change: learning and testing. Then after you graduate from your learning and testing you have the option (by submitting to a few more years of learning and testing) of becoming the taskmaster (teacher) who puts other initiates (students) through these trials. Such is the master and apprentice or teacher and disciple relationship hat we base our society on... and it itself is based upon the idea of fulfillment: the achievement of something desired, promised or predicted (according to a random Google search that I just did). Andy Warhol was a foundational element in shaping what 1960's Art and Design would be, so by the 1980's he was generally universally understood as being part of the art establishment. This gave him an excellent position from which to choose which young artists he could mold and collaborate with. The piece "Ten Punching bags (Last Supper) are one of several collaborative works between Warhol and the young graffiti/neo expressionist phenom Jean-Michel Basquiat. The forerunner and chosen one relationship between Basquiat and Warhol loosely parallels that of Jesus and John the Baptist. It is clear from scripture that John the Baptist's ministry was established and his legitimacy as a prophet well understood by the Judean masses by the time Jesus appeared to be baptized. He was also feared and perceived as a troublemaker by the religious and civil powers-that-be. So when he Jesus recognized Jesus' ministry he did so as if it were one collaborative artwork that they both were creating together. Their ministries were two parts of this one message of salvation. But then here is where my analogy falls apart because even though John the Baptist was the Warhol in this scenario time wise he saw himself as more of a student and servant. Not only was Christ the master painter but he was the subject of the portrait that John the Baptist had been painting: the Lamb of God. In proclaiming Jesus to be the Lamb of God, John the Baptist reveals a another parallel in this story: that of the Old and New Testament. John shows that he is another member in the long line of prophets from the Old Testament that pointed to a fulfillment that stood before him awaiting baptism: Jesus Christ. The "Lamb of God" connects back to something from the time of the Old Testament's greatest prophet, Moses. It is the Paschal Lamb of the Passover (or Korban Pesakh קרבן פסח in Hebrew). The night before the Israelites escaped from Egyptian slavery Moses commanded that they eat a sacrificed lamb with bitter herbs and matzo. They were also commanded to sprinkle the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. In doing so the Lord would "pass over" the homes of the Israelites as he went to destroy the firstborn of every Egyptian household that night. John the Baptist understood the Jesus as the Messiah would serve as the world's Passover Lamb. His would be the sacrificial blood that would be sprinkled over the faithful to save them from the wrath of God. The word "sacrifice" is usually used metaphorically when people discuss the ones that they have made in life, however, Jesus' would be quite literal and John the Baptist understood this. He would have understood the prophetic references to it by such prophets like Isaiah. Judaism up to this point was a sacrificial religion (that's what occurred at the Temple in Jerusalem) so John the Baptist would also understand that "without shedding of blood there is no remission" from sin. Therefore Christ's sacrificial death in our place was necessary to free us from the slavery of sin. Like Warhol and Basquiat's piece illustrates, Jesus became a punching bag.
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| The Last Supper, Andy Warhol |
This is He of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.’ I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water.”
A instance of repetition can also be used as a tool for establishing and furthering a theme. In the above piece entitled "Last Supper" (heads up: they are all entitled "The Last Supper") we see signs of the old Andy, complete with banal replications of popular American commercial imagery...or is the religious imagery the original Andy. Andy publicly presented works with replications of commercial logos for decades but the study of Da Vinci's Last Supper seems closer to the art that Warhol had been familiar with since his youth. Andy Warhol was the son of born Andrej Warhola, the so of immigrants from Slovakia. His family was Ruthenian Catholic, an autonomous Eastern Rite church within the Catholic Church. Though they are in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, they visually and culturally seem more similar to the Eastern Orthodox. Andy attended mass as a sickly child at his family's church surrounded by religious icons: flat panel painted images of the greats of the faith used in worship and intercession. Ironically (or intentionally), the grown up version of Andy Warhol would go on to create pop cultural icons in a very flatly painted style that illustrated our "worship" of celebrity and consumerism. The juxtaposition of these two understandings of the concept of an icon (cultural and religious) in Andy's life show it as a theme running through his own art and interests. It is similar to the theme of the Preexistence of the Son of God theme in the Gospel of John. We are first exposed to it in John 1:1-3 :
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
Then in John 1:6-8 we are introduced to the sub theme of John the Baptist being the forerunner of the preexistent Son of God:
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
Then later on in this chapter the writer goes on give further narrative detail of John's ministry and quotations asserting that his ministry is but the precursor to that of the long awaited Messiah's.
John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’” And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. Now this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?” He said: “I am ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Make straight the way of the Lord,”’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees. And they asked him, saying, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” John answered them, saying, “I baptize with water, but there stands One among you whom you do not know. It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose.” These things were done in Bethabara[h] beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
So all of this leads up to the story of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus... and the 1st chapter of John serves as a prologue for the story of Jesus in general. So if you are keeping score it includes repetition in the form of 1) repeating a story that is already in another Gospel (Matthew) 2) referencing an Old Testament quotation 3) alluding that John the Baptist his present day's equivalent of the Old Testament prophets that pointed to the fulfillment in the Messiah, Jesus. I believe that I can rest my case now that the author is establishing a theme here. What is it then? It is that Jesus is a real life icon, in the religious sense. As St. Paul wrote in Colossians 1:15:
He is the image of the invisible God...
Unlike John the Baptist, Moses and all of the prophets of old that pointed forward to him, Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all of God's Word. He is the image of God that is worthy to receive worship because he is God in the flesh.
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| The Last Supper, Andy Warhol |
Harmony
And John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”
The third reason for repetition in Art and Scripture that I'd like to explore is that of harmony. Harmony in music doesn't denote everyone singing exactly the same but rather singing similarly enough in their differences as to compliment each other (according to a definition that I just made up). Yet again we are presented a Warhol image entitled "The Last Supper" (made via silkscreen printing, which Warhol pioneered in art). Once again it is derivative of Da Vinci's Last Supper. Yet this one becomes the triumvirate of repetition by consisting of the same image produced twice. Andy Warhol became famous for his machine like duplication of images through silk screening. He even stated once "The reason I'm painting this way is that I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do." The thing is that Warhol's notion of a machine was repetitive, mechanical and maybe dispassionate...it wasn't perfection. Quite the opposite he still left intentional differences in his artwork that were capitalized on. The type of errors that an old printing press machine would make and repeat, getting greater and greater each time. These differences were not erroneous to him but rather beautiful, intentional and displayed a sense of intelligence, will and design from the machine itself. So when you look closely at Warhol's repetitions you will notice that they are not identical: it is intentional and to the appreciative eye it can be beautiful. Placed beside another similar piece it create harmony by the pairing of complimentary difference. The four Gospels are not identical. Three of them (Matthew, Mark and Luke) are fairly similar and are called the Synoptic Gospels, from the Greek meaning "seen together." yet some of their differences can be weighty. The Gospel of John is a whole other animal. It's like if you saw a swan sitting next to a duck, who was sitting next to a goose...then a platypus walks up. Yet as shown in art and music, differences does not always lead to cacophony but sometimes rather produces harmony. The harmony of the Gospels is that they testify to the same overall conclusions in the midst of their differences. The Gospel of John recants the story of the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus at his baptism just like Matthew 3:13-17 does. The difference is that in John, John the Baptist makes an endorsement of Jesus' true nature while in Matthew God Himself is shown declaring it. Yet both testimonies, the four Gospels and the fulfillment of the prophets of old harmonize to the same conclusion:
And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.
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| The Last Supper, Andy Warhol |
All of life can be exercises in repetition and a man is judged in how he occupies his time. The religious part of one's life is no exception. Andy Warhol's secret religious life was revealed by his stash of paintings about the Last Supper and the eulogy at his memorial service at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan. He did 100 variations on the theme. The eulogist revealed that Andy served in soup kitchens feeding the poor, attended mass every week and often throughout the week. Andy knew religious repetition. Sitting through mass he would have known the schedule: like when the priest would present the bread and wine as body and blood of the Lamb of God that come to take away the sins of the world. Then he would go home from mass and work on these private paintings of The Last Supper where Jesus is (argued by some) pictured eating a Passover meal with his Disciples. The sacrificial Lamb of God was participating in the ritual that once included the eating of another sacrificial lamb with his disciples who like John the Baptist and the prophets of old would go along later to spread the message of the fulfillment of Jesus the Messiah. Jesus knew religious repetition. Now Andy Warhol was known as a naughty boy, but I will not pontificate upon the final destination of his soul. I don't know what he did in his final moments. It does seem that underneath his public celebrity, hedonistic, voyeur, bon vivant persona lied a person with faith. It wasn't perfect faith. It wasn't overly intellectual theologically. It wasn't very deep. But Christ himself encouraged us to have faith even if it is as small as a mustard seed. He can develop that faith. If we are to be honest, many of our own personal faith portraits look like Andy's. Christ also encouraged his disciples to make their acts of prayer, fasting and giving to the poor private and not acts for public spectacle. Andy surely did keep his religious life private. The difference between the repetitive religious lives of Jesus and Andy Warhol (and our own) is how we deal with sin. It is fine (and sometimes great) to be private with aspects of your faith but it becomes problematic when you are public with your sin. I am not judging Andy Warhol, he just happened to live his life publicly so we are aware of his public problems. The rest of us are free to sin repetitively in private. Yet there is one who sees all and knows all: God. He sees our repetitive sins. He sees our repetitive acts of righteousness. He sees our repetitive hypocrisy. Sin is something hat Christians will deal with repeatedly while they continue to breath. But Scripture tells us that we have a mercifully repetitive God:
Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,Because His compassions fail not.They are new every morning;
The Gospels of Matthew and John both show the Holy Spirit descending upon Christ at baptism. This is the same Holy Spirit that comes into the Heart of every believer. It is the part of God that teaches and develops every believer through every interaction how to be Christ-like. If you are not where you need to be spiritually have patience, obedience and humility and God will lead you there eventually. You are not perfected at baptism but baptism shows that you are a growing disciple of the Perfect One. Faith is a journey that takes a life time because God is patient and learning is repetitive.
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